Don't think I forgot about you
Not gunna lie, been wondering why you haven't popped up lol.
The point I am trying to make is that Luke is far different from Jedi in the PT and that he paves his own path by defying his masters to do what he feels is right. You originally said that Luke's version of being a Jedi wasn't really any different from the Jedi found in the PT. That's wildly incorrect. He created his own version of what it means to be a Jedi, knowingly or not. He largely paves his own path.
My point is, whether or not he makes miniscule changes, he's still following the same fundamental teachings of the Jedi, and his order wouldn't be varrying too far from those fundamental teachings. Because at the end of the day, every Jedi is a little different. Qui Gon's beliefs are different from Obi Wan's beliefs which differ from Yoda's beliefs which differ from Plo Kloon's beliefs which differ from Anakin's beliefs.
All of these characters are Jedi, and all of them have a slightly different understanding of what it means to be a Jedi, but fundamentally it all stems from the same teachings. Luke is exactly the same, and while a Jedi masters personal feelings and ideals are sometimes passed down to their padawan what they teach them are the fundamentals and they're free to do things from there however they like as long as it doesn't go against these fundamentals.
So what I'm saying is, Luke was never nearly as different from any other Jedi as you imply, and if anything Luke is far more simple and pure hearted than most if not all of the republic Jedi.
If you watch the clone wars then watch the OT there's a very strong contrast in character from Luke to all of the other Jedi, and its because he's pure hearted and fairly simple, as a character that's what he was designed to, be the ultimate do gooder and if you want to put a religious spin on it: He's the ideal church boy.
Again, sure he may do things slightly differently but at the end of the day, he's not that much different than the others and if anything is a lot closer to being a clean cut Jedi than many of those in the republic ever were.
and I know you mean to say that 'Well because he force choked people and didn't kill Vader he's different!" and again he is different, but if anything, not killing Vader is because the character is pure of heart and a force of good whereas force choking and killing wasn't established in the series as something bad when that film was made.
There's a few things happening here (judging by the quotes you pulled):
In the TFA novelization, are you thinking "Leia was aware of the influence Snoke could have on her son" means she discovered Snoke through the force? Because all I'm reading that as is: she is force sensitive, so she has an obligation to protect her son from dark forces (Snoke); that doesn't mean she DISCOVERED WHO HE IS via the force. I'm sure she didn't LEARN OF HIS EXISTENCE through the force itself. I bet she discovered this from other information.
No, I understand that she knew who he was prior, but its the fact that she's strong enough in the force
to be able to know who it was. Now realize that Leia is fairly weak in the force in the grand scheme of things as far as I know, but I do know that Luke is far stronger in the force. So my point is, if Leia, a fairly weak force user can do
that why wouldn't Luke, one of the strongest force users be able to take that to an entirely different level.
In addition, that is a really interesting quote you included from Aftermath. Notice how not once Snoke is mentioned in that excerpt though? Sure, she is SENSING that someone is "watching" them, but she even outright asks "who is watching us?" So she may be sensing someone using dark powers on her but she has no idea who it is.
It was in retaliation to the argument that Leia couldn't sense people through the force because she couldn't do it in the original trilogy.
Presumably, even Yoda knew who Leia and Luke were before sensing them through the force; I'm sure he discovered this via Obi-Wan. I could be wrong on that though.
Prior to the prequel Retcons, there's nothing to indicate that Obi Wan knew that Luke and Leia were twins. It wouldn't make sense anyway considering that Luke and Leia were never written as twins in A New Hope, that came in the Empire Strikes back. It also was a retcon. So with that in mind, Obi Wan couldn't have known they were twins and thus couldn't have informed Yoda. Yoda would have had to figure it out on his own.
Either way: both YODA and the EMPEROR (the midichlorian shit is a slippery slope), who are arguably the most knowledgeable and powerful force users in canon content (considering we know almost nothing about Snoke), could only sense that there was OFFSPRING, not specifically who it was (again, I'm assuming Yoda knew specifically who Luke/Leia were from communing with Obi-Wan). A disturbance through the force notified the emperor; only then could he even see that there was offspring of Anakin Skywalker. The destruction of the death star set this discovery in motion.
At this point in time, I think its a fair assumption to say that Luke is more powerful than the emperor and Vader. That's usually how these stories go, the hero defeats the great evil and many years later, through continued training he learns that his powers have grown far past his original adversaries. It's a trope. Luke has also been studying the ways of the ancient Jedi and the force, this is established in The Last Jedi. So with that in mind if Palpatine can do it and Yoda can do it, and Luke has surprassed both of them why wouldn't Luke be able to do it? He wouldn't need to know where they are, but he would know that they
do exist and in the act of knowing that they do exist he could use the force and locate them. Locating someone as a powerful force user isn't too difficult of a task.
And again, Leia is force sensitive, Luke and Leia share a connection through the force because they're related and are of the same bloodline. If Rey were of that same bloodline, Leia should be able to feel some connection from her simply because of that. But that's not present.
Unless there's more information out there, we have no idea how Snoke discovered that Leia was pregnant with Ben. He may have learned it through the force, he may have discovered it via more conventional means. Authors often utilize their own creative decisions that might not completely line up with the main films. I wanna wait until the next film hits for more clarification on how Snoke discovered and influenced Ben.
this is fair
If we look at the OT, Vader couldn't even sense that he had a son, even when he came in contact with Luke (in ANH). The emperor literally had to tell him that there were offspring of Skywalker that were in existence, ONLY after the event that pushed those force visions forward (the destruction of the death star).
That's because at the time, Vader
didn't have a son. Anakin Skywalker did, and in A New Hope, Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were two different entities, and I don't mean in an idealogical sense. They were quite literally two different people. Obi Wan didn't lie to Luke about his father, and his aunt and his uncle wasn't foreshadowing when he said (paraphrasing) that Luke has too much of his father in him. It was changed in the Empire Strikes back and was a plot twist that no one expected because that's not what was originally planned when A New Hope was made. Anakin
was everything Obi Wan said he was and Vader
did have no children. It was all retconned in later when the story direction changed in ESB
In the shows or main films, I don't believe we have ever seen a force user "discover" someone's identity via the force.
It's not just about discovering the identity, its about knowing of the
existence. Which was your argument, that it's possible that Luke might not have known of the existence of Rey, to which I disagree. From there, he would have tried to find out her identity or contact her in some way, apparently the force extends to psychic contacting across great distances. Arguably a powerful force user could get into a weak mind from across great distances and see their thoughts and memories as Kylo Ren does to Rey in TFA. From there he could probably figure out her identity, or at least where to look for her in finding someone else. It's not like there isn't super advanced tech that's never been utilized for that specific purpose in star wars. That's like half of all clone wars episodes right there. But a half of that is uncharted territory and theoretical.
I don't believe Luke would simply know when Rey was born. Remember -- the film is called THE FORCE AWAKENS. This happens when Rey starts fucking shit up in EP7. Why would we assume that he's able to create a super strong connection through the force and not only be aware of Rey's birth but know where she's at? When the force has been dormant for years?
While
your powers may be dormant, but the force is not. Using the title in your argument can get messy. Simply because, Kylo Ren has been using the force for years actively, meaning it can't be dormant, and apparently so has Snoke. On top of that, Rey was at least 13 by the time Luke's academy was destroyed, I don't have a quote for this but it was brought up earlier in the thread. So that means for the first 13 years of Rey's life there were other force users. Apparently she's 19 in TFA? which means its been 6 years from the destruction of the academy to the events of TFA/TLJ so the force didn't just awaken in general. It awoke inside her specifically, and even then it's not really that the force awoke inside her, it's that she was able to unlock her powers once she realized they were there and I'd argue that while you always have that potential inside you if you're force sensitive, it takes something to bring that out of you. Kind of like how in X-Men you're born with the mutant gene, but it takes something, often some kind of traumatic event for it to activate. Maybe in star wars, in addition to that it takes coming into contact with a force user.
But even then, we also don't know if Rey has never used the force before, maybe she has unwittingly. Maybe Rey's parents are kind of shit bags and she showed signs of being a force sensitive as a child, and because of that they ditched her because they were afraid of what the empire would do to them because of it.
